Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Tagged? No!!!!

Apparently, bloggers play this game where they 'tag' a few fellow bloggers who are then obligated to tell some facts about themselves and then tag more bloggers...

I just got tagged by FlashFresh; and although I've never heard of this game I guess I'll play along. (I know you just made this up in order to pry special Sekrets out of me, Flash!)

So, some facts about your truely, one of the following statements is false:

I'm a computer programer, fluent in several languages.I'm an Eagle Scout.I was practically a slave to some of my former carebear corps/alliances.I've lived in several countries, including Germany, Japan, and Italy (and USA).I've done some small time corporate spying (in Eve, of course).If you can guess which statement is false, you get 1,000,000,000 ISK.

The Rules:

Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.

Share 7 facts about myself in the post - some random, some weird. I added one more, a false fact to confuse. You don't have to!

Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.

Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

As many of you have known that assault frigates recently got a buff in the last patch. This prompts the next subject of The Overview: Battleships Online has turned into David vs Goliath Online. In other words, larger ships have a much harder time hitting smaller ships.

There are a few things which factor into how often a ship will hit it's target. First off, is optimal range + falloff. If your target is out of range, you won't be able to hit it; obviously. But frigates are meant to get in close and personal, so how are they to avoid getting wtfbbq'ed by a battleship (or any decently large ship)?

The answer is something called transversal velocity. Imagine a battleship, shooting at a stationary target. That target will pop very quickly. Now imagine that battleship, with a small circle around it, and the target is following that circle (orbiting the battleship). This creates transversal velocity, where your ship moves faster than your opponent's turrets can rotate.

To maximize your transversal, you want to do three key things. First, ensure that the circle is as small as possible [get in as close as possible]. If you are going 800m/s with an afterburner (a reasonable speed) 500m away from your target, you are probably just fine. Now, if you are going 800m/s but 20km away from your target... not so much.

The second thing is speed itself, if you are orbiting your target at 10m/s; your as good as dead. So, get your ship going as fast as possible, in this case speed is your tank. Speed can be increased by using the following low slot modules: Nanofibers, overdrives, and inertial stabilizers.

Some of the more savy of you may have noted that I listed inertia stabs; they do not actually increase your speed. But they do help increase your transversal velocity. How so? you may ask. Think about it like this, why can't a battleship orbit another battleship and be immune from damage, even if it is going 800m/s like a frigate? Simply because it can't turn fast enough thus increasing our imaginary circle. An inertia stab helps decrease our circle and thus further increases your transversal.

The third major factor in transversal is what is known as your signature radius. A frigate has a sig radius of about 40m while a battleship has one of over 400m. The most obvious effect of the sig radius is locking times, a frigate can lock a battleship in 2 or 3 seconds, while that battleship may spend 20seconds or so locking the frigate. The other major function of sig radii is that of being a circular target which you might find at an archery range. Obviously, the smaller of a target you are, the harder for your enemies to hit you. This also leads into one of two reasons why you should generally use an Afterburner over a Microwarpdrive when relying on speed for life like this.

When a microwarp drive is activated, the sig radius of a ship increases by a multiple of 5. Thus, a frigate would effectively have the sig radius of a battlecruiser, making it an easy target for the battleship. Also, if you get warp scrambled (as opposed to disrupted), your MWD gets shut off, leaving you up the creek with no paddle. Also, MWD's nerf your capacitor by 25% (with the exception of the Thorax cruiser), which is very precious to you newer players.[You can train the skills of Energy Systems Operations and Energy Management (sp?), to increase your capacitor size and recharge, these are nice skills.]

So, how might a battleship (goliath) slaughter the davids that assault him? There are a few methods, ranging from smartbombing the bastards to oblivion, which is hilarious if it works. You can also let loose some drones on them, but they can be destroyed. You can try webbing them, which may or may not help you enough (they only decrease speed by ~50%, not 90%). You can fit tracking computers to increase your turrets' tracking, or target painters to increase your target's sig radius. Another option is to have a heavy energy neutralizer offlined, and when you need it online it, neut the imputous frigate and then laugh maniacally as it is 1 volleyed by your ship.

Or you can bring more goliaths. It is rather hard to maintain transversal velocities against multiple enemies.

But they could also bring more davids.

At any rate, a frigate is not guaranteed a BS kill if it gets a tackle; even though some may inscessantly wine about the cruelty of CCP. But assault frigs just rock now. [But don't fly them unless you know what you are doing, they are expensive as all get out-- 20m per ishkur which is non-insurable!]

In other world changing news, I am now officially a part of The Bastards![Trumpets blare, kings of Olde bow and pay their respects... I unbann Garmo--]